The Jasper Artists Guild has been in the forefront of visual art in Jasper for 23 years.
In addition to the well-known public face of the guild, the Jasper Art Gallery, the guild advocates for visual art and the artists who create it. One avenue of celebrating visual art is the “Featured Artist” Presentation Series. Recently, two local Jasper artists, Claude Boocock and Amy Sallenbach were featured as they created paintings from a blank canvas. The public were invited to watch and ask questions as the landscapes emerged and revealed the artist’s vision and creativity through colourful brush strokes.
Currently, Greg Deagle, a founding member of the Guild, is presenting an interactive project titled “Cities of Colour II,” vignettes about process and passion which made its debut at Andromeda in May 2024. Experimental in nature, “Cities of Colour” invokes glimpses into the spirit, colours and energy of more than 20 international cities.
Now comes the twist. An interactive community-based project compliments Deagle’s series in the form of a twelve panel reveal, in which friends and members of the public come together to paint and assemble a grid-like scene of Jasper, enhancing Jasper’s status as a “City of Colour.”
Drawing back the curtain, we can see how the community-based element compliments Deagle’s work and tells the story.
The interactive element took the form of a "reveal" wherein Deagle snapped a picture of a nondescript Jasper back alley and had it enlarged to 36” x 36”. He then spliced the photo into twelve 9” x 12” horizontal segments and traced each segment in pencil onto corresponding 9” x 12” canvas panels. Participants were invited to select a piece and strive to paint it during the opening event. This turned out to be an immersive, and at times, fragile experience as artists, novice and professional alike, worked through blockages or contended with images and perceptions that carried universal themes far beyond their actual experience. The pride and joy the artists felt was obvious as their finished pieces were returned to the space frame to create the reveal, a new and different look at Jasper balanced against the international cities of Deagle’s work. There are still two blank canvases available and creative artists are needed to complete the reveal.
The “Cities of Colour II” exhibition runs at the Jasper Art Gallery until June 15.
